SoftwareX

SoftwareX is a fully open-access journal from Elsevier, launched in 2015, that treats research software as a citable scholarly output. Each article presents a piece of code that others can obtain, build and run, and explains what that code does. The title sits in computer science, software engineering, and draws submissions from every computational discipline. Its 2025 Journal Impact Factor is 1.9, ranking 78 of 128 in COMPUTER SCIENCE, SOFTWARE ENGINEERING and placing it in Q3.《SoftwareX》是 Elsevier 于 2015 年创办的完全开放获取期刊，把科研软件当作可引用的学术产出。每篇论文围绕一件他人能够获取并编译运行的代码展开，说明这件代码究竟做什么。该刊归入计算机科学的软件工程方向，同时接收各个计算学科的投稿。2025 年期刊影响因子为 1.9，在计算机科学软件工程类的 128 种期刊中列第 78 位，属 Q3。

Scope

• SoftwareX publishes the software itself. A submission describes a program that other researchers can obtain, build and run, and the paper explains what the code does and why the problem it solves matters.《SoftwareX》发表的对象就是软件。一篇投稿介绍的是一件他人可以获取并编译运行的程序，文章说明代码的用途，也交代它解决的问题为何值得处理。
• Methods and tools for scientific computing form the central axis, with papers on numerical routines, solvers, statistical procedures and the software layer that carries them into practice.科学计算的方法与工具是核心轴线，数值例程、求解器与统计方法以及把它们带入实践的软件层都在范围内。
• Libraries and frameworks are covered when they are substantial engineering artefacts in their own right, including APIs, language bindings, plugin systems and packages that other groups build upon.库与框架只要本身构成有分量的工程产物也可投稿，涉及其接口、语言绑定与插件体系，以及被其他团队继续搭建的软件包。
• Instrument control and data acquisition software appears regularly, from laboratory device drivers and experiment sequencers to the code that streams measurements from telescopes, beamlines and field stations.仪器控制与数据采集软件经常出现，从实验室设备驱动与实验流程控制，到把望远镜、光束线与野外台站的测量数据持续传回的代码。
• Simulation and modelling codes are accepted on the same footing, whether they implement finite-element solvers, agent-based models, molecular dynamics or climate and hydrological schemes used by a standing community.仿真与建模代码受到同等对待，有限元求解、主体模型与分子动力学实现都在其中，也包括长期被某个共同体使用的水文与气候方案。
• Data analysis and visualisation tools are a further stream. Plotting libraries, interactive dashboards, image processing pipelines and software for handling very large arrays all find a home here.数据分析与可视化工具构成另一条支流。绘图库、交互式面板与图像处理管线在此都有位置，处理超大规模数组的软件同样如此。
• Reproducible research is written into the remit. Submissions are expected to carry a workflow that a reader can rerun, with pinned dependencies, archived releases and documented input data.可复现研究写进了收稿范围。投稿应带有读者能够重跑的工作流，依赖版本固定，发行版有归档，输入数据有说明。
• Software sustainability and engineering practice are treated as publishable subjects in their own right, covering testing, continuous integration, packaging, licensing and the maintenance burden that long-lived research code creates.软件可持续性与工程实践本身即为可发表的主题，涵盖测试、持续集成与打包，也讨论许可协议以及长期维护的负担。
• Teaching software belongs to the scope as well. Visualisers, exercise frameworks and simulation environments built for coursework are reviewed on how well students can install and learn from them.教学软件同样属于收稿范围。为课程制作的演示工具、习题框架与仿真环境，会按学生能否顺利安装并从中学到东西来评审。
• Domain toolchains carry much of the traffic, with bioinformatics pipelines, geoscience processing suites, physics analysis frameworks and engineering design tools appearing in every volume of the journal.领域专用工具链贡献了相当多的稿件，生物信息流程、地球科学处理套件与物理分析框架几乎每卷都能见到，工程设计工具亦然。
• High-performance and parallel computing is in scope, including codes that scale across clusters, GPU kernels, workflow engines and the profiling tools that keep such runs tractable for ordinary research groups.高性能与并行计算也在范围内，包括能在集群上扩展的代码、GPU 内核与工作流引擎，以及让这类运行对普通课题组仍然可行的性能分析工具。
• Software papers must state a concrete need. The text explains which research question the tool serves, who already uses it and what would be lost if the code disappeared tomorrow.软件论文必须讲清具体需求。正文说明这件工具服务于哪个研究问题，谁已经在用，代码若明天消失会损失什么。
• Reviews of software ecosystems also appear, mapping what a field already has, comparing competing packages and pointing out the gaps that new development ought to fill in the near term.软件生态综述也在其列，梳理某一领域的现有工具，比较彼此竞争的软件包，并指出近期开发应当补上的空缺。
• Visual and interactive work is welcome when the interface is the research contribution, covering scientific animation, immersive displays and browser-based tools that let non-specialists explore a dataset.界面本身就是研究贡献的可视化与交互工作也受欢迎，涉及科学动画与沉浸式显示，也包括让非专业读者自行探索数据集的浏览器工具。

History

• Elsevier launched SoftwareX in 2015 as a fully open-access title with no subscription edition. The first volume appeared that year and the journal has been published continuously since.Elsevier 于 2015 年推出《SoftwareX》，自始就是完全开放获取的刊物，没有订阅版。首卷当年问世，此后持续出版至今。
• The launch argument was that software had become a primary vehicle of discovery while remaining hard to cite, and that the people who write it deserved scholarly credit.创刊的立论是软件已成为发现的主要载体，却长期难以被引用，写代码的人应当获得学术承认。
• The journal has grown with the field. Output rose from a handful of articles in the early volumes to roughly 430 papers a year in the 2025 count.该刊随领域一同扩张。早期各卷每年只有寥寥数篇，2025 年的统计口径下全年发文约 430 篇。
• Volume numbering expanded to keep pace. Four volumes appeared in 2025, numbered 29 to 32, and the count had reached volume 36 by the end of 2026.卷号随之增多。2025 年出了四卷，编号从 29 到 32，到 2026 年底已排至第 36 卷。
• There are no issue numbers. Each article joins a volume under its own number, so a citation gives the volume and a number such as 102400 rather than a page range.该刊不设期号。每篇文章按自己的编号归入某一卷，引用时给出卷号与 102400 这类编号，不用跨页的页码范围。
• A single electronic ISSN, 2352-7110, covers the whole run. No print edition has ever been issued, so every paper exists only as a digital file with a permanent article number.全刊只用一个电子 ISSN，即 2352-7110。从未出过印刷版，每篇论文只以数字文件形式存在，并带有固定的文章编号。
• Open access was never a later conversion. The title has been gold open access from volume one, with authors choosing between a CC BY and a CC BY-NC licence.开放获取并非后来改制。该刊从第一卷起就是金色开放获取，作者可在 CC BY 与 CC BY-NC 两种许可之间选择。
• Publication charges replace subscriptions. The list price recorded in the open-access directory is 1,560 US dollars per accepted article, and Elsevier runs waiver schemes for authors in lower-income countries.订阅费由出版费取代。开放获取目录登记的标价为每篇录用文章 1560 美元，Elsevier 另对低收入国家作者设有减免办法。
• The title sits in the Journal Citation Reports software engineering category. Its 2025 Journal Impact Factor is 1.9, five-year value 2.9, with a Journal Citation Indicator of 0.59.该刊列在期刊引证报告的软件工程类目中。2025 年期刊影响因子为 1.9，五年影响因子 2.9，期刊引文指标 0.59。
• Recent impact has softened after a peak. The impact factor read 2.868 in 2022, then 2.4 in both 2023 and 2024, before falling to 1.9 in the 2025 release.近年影响指标在见顶后回落。影响因子 2022 年为 2.868，2023 年与 2024 年均为 2.4，2025 年版降至 1.9。
• In the 2025 release the journal ranks 78th among 128 titles in computer science, software engineering, which places it in the third quartile of that category for the year.在 2025 年版报告中，该刊于计算机科学软件工程类的 128 种期刊中列第 78 位，位于 Q3。
• Citation traffic is steady for a young title. The 2025 data record some 8,900 citations and a cited half-life of 7.8 years, alongside about 430 articles published each year.对一份年轻刊物而言，被引情况稳定。2025 年数据记录被引约 8900 次，被引半衰期 7.8 年，全年发文约 430 篇。
• Indexing followed the usual Elsevier route. The title is in Science Citation Index Expanded, in Scopus, and in PubMed for selected citations only, which is unusual for a software journal.收录路径遵循 Elsevier 的常规做法。该刊进入 Science Citation Index Expanded 与 Scopus，在 PubMed 中只收录部分引用，这对软件刊物并不常见。
• The imprint has stayed with Elsevier B.V. in Amsterdam throughout. There has been no transfer of ownership, no change of title and no relaunch since the first volume.出版署名一直是阿姆斯特丹的 Elsevier B.V.。自首卷以来没有发生所有权转移，没有改换刊名，也没有重新改版。

Editors

• The editorial board is drawn from computational science at large, with members working in physics, biology, geoscience, engineering and the data sciences rather than in software engineering alone.编委会来自整个计算科学界，成员分布于物理、生物与地球科学等领域，也覆盖工程与数据科学，并不限于软件工程本行。
• Handling follows the single anonymous model recorded in the open-access directory. Reviewers see the authors' names and affiliations, while reports reach authors without the reviewers' identities attached.评审采用单盲方式，开放获取目录对此有明确记录。审稿人知道作者的姓名与单位，作者收到的意见则不附审稿人身份。
• Referees are asked to do more than read. They fetch the code, build it, run the examples and judge whether the documentation lets a stranger reproduce the reported output.审稿人被要求做的不止是读稿。他们需要取回代码并完成编译，运行示例，再判断文档是否足以让陌生人复现文中给出的结果。
• Every submission carries a code metadata table. It lists the current version, the permanent archive link, the licence, the programming language and the hardware needed to run it.每篇投稿都附一张代码元数据表。表中列出当前版本号、永久归档链接与许可协议，也写明所用编程语言和运行所需的硬件。
• Two main formats exist for original software. The full original software publication allows a longer treatment, while the short version keeps the description compact for tools that need less explanation.原创软件论文有两种主要篇幅。完整版可以展开叙述，短版则把说明压缩，适合本不需要太多解释的工具。
• Desk screening is firm. Manuscripts that describe a method without releasing runnable code, or that present results the software cannot reproduce, are returned before referees are approached.初审把关较严。只讲方法而不公开可运行代码的稿件，或者给出软件无法复现的结果的稿件，会在送审之前退回。
• Availability is a condition of acceptance. Code must sit in a public repository under an open licence, and the paper has to say where the archive will live in the long term.可获取性是录用的前提。代码须放在公开仓库并以开放许可发布，文章还要说明长期归档的位置。
• Licence choice rests with the author. Creative Commons Attribution and the non-commercial variant are both accepted, and the choice is recorded in the metadata table rather than left implicit.许可协议由作者选定。署名许可与非商业变体都被接受，所选协议记入元数据表，不留在含糊状态。
• Authors pay the charge and keep the copyright. There is no subscription barrier at any point, and readers may reuse figures and text under the terms the author chose.作者支付出版费并保留著作权。全刊没有任何订阅壁垒，读者可按作者选定的条款复用图表与文字。
• Updates to software already published in the journal are handled as new submissions. The authors must show what changed, why the change matters and how the earlier paper relates to the new one.已在本刊发表过的软件若有更新，按新投稿处理。作者须说明改动内容，交代改动为何重要，以及旧文与新文的关系。
• Ethics follow the publisher's standing rules. Authorship disputes, image manipulation and undisclosed conflicts go to the publisher's research integrity team, and the journal applies the COPE guidance on corrections and retractions.伦理事项按出版方的通行规则处理。署名争议、图像处理与未披露的利益冲突交由出版方的科研诚信团队，更正与撤稿则依 COPE 指南办理。
• Special issues appear from time to time, usually built around a community's tooling and steered by guest editors who work with the standing board on scope and referees.特刊不定期推出，多围绕某个共同体的工具建设组织，由客座编辑与常任编委共同商定范围与审稿人。